Lessons from a newsroom raid: How to encrypt your devices to protect yourself
Kansas Reflector/Sherman Smith. Used with permission.
The 2023 police raid on the Marion County Record was an outrageous violation of press freedom.
In 2023, law enforcement officers in Marion, Kansas, raided a local newspaper office and its publisher and owners’ home. Police seized computers, cellphones, and other materials, and injured a journalist in the process. Record co-owner Joan Meyer, 98, died a day later.
The raid was connected to baseless charges against the newspaper under state computer crime laws. The charges were later dropped and the journalists cleared of all wrongdoing. But the illegal raid on the Record was a dramatic violation of press freedom that must not be repeated.
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